We’re gonna need a bigger boat…is what I say to Phyl… us, surrounded by the circus of breaching leviathans, fantails wider than the Orca’s deck on this whale watch I swore she’d never drag me on after twice readingMoby Dick and watching Jaws a few too many times (if that’s possible)…

her seeing me as The Clown, my familiar humor only a fleeting distraction— my sole purpose on earth: keeping this woman in smiles— but me, seriously identifying with Jaws' hydrophobic Brody, me weak in the knees with vertigo at the thought of twenty thousand leagues of watery grave looming below us and patiently trolling the surface… waiting on

Ol’ Man Gravity to reel us down… and so, humor being my best coping skill, like whistling through the cemetery at midnight, I kill both gulls with one stone, leaning into her as we brace for the next swell on rubbery sea legs, and me plucking the invisible Chesterfield out of my mug and crushing it under the toe of my boat shoe while muttering in my best Bogart…

When this tub goes belly-up, kid, shtick with me, see?I got us a plan. “And what’s the big plan, Ahab?”Party balloons, shweetheart… “Party balloons?”That’s right, beautiful: I’m packin’— The way I see it,when this floating coffin rolls over, I give you half, see?That’s when we start blowin’em up ‘n stuffin’ our shirts… But sudden flukes slap surf off the starboard and

I lose her to the spectacle-- so I, too, marvel for a while… secretly fingering that veryreal packet of red, green, yellow and blue birthday balloons nesting inmy jacket pocket...